Retired footballer George Weah has won the run-off elections in Liberia to become that West African country’s 25th president.
The senator of Montserrado County – once named Fifa World Player and winner of the much-coveted Ballon d'Or – defeated his 73-year-old opponent, Vice President Joseph Boakai to win a landslide victory in results announced in Liberia late Thursday.
According to reports, National Elections Commission chairperson Jerome Korkoyah said that with 98.1% of the vote counted, Weah led Boakai by 61.5% to 38.5%. Final results were expected on Friday.
Liberia’s first female head of state, 79-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, steps down and leaves behind an impoverished country still reeling from the effects of previous wars and the deadly Ebola outbreak.
– African News Agency (ANA),
